Gov’t Encourages Fertilizer Use

By Emmanuel Kubi

Daily Guide:Sept.1,2010

GOVERNMENT has encouraged farmers to change from fertilizer application of 8kg per hectare to 20kg per hectare, which is an approved standard by NEPAD for countries in the sub-region.
Most farmers are ignorant about the proper application of the correct amount of fertilizers per hectare to boost their yield.
In an exclusive interview with DAILY GUIDE, Justice Amoah, Deputy Director of Field Service, who doubles as the Desk Officer for Fertilizer Supply System, said that lack of education, high cost of fertilizers, among others contribute significantly to the low fertilizer application that affect production.
This, according to him, has been a source of worry to government, adding that some of the farmers obtain the coupons and hide them while others divert the coupons from getting to the actual beneficiaries.
According to Mr. Amoah, government has decided to introduce the Waybill system, explaining that fertilizer companies would have to import, clear the fertilizers from the ports, pay all charges and deliver them to the designated regions and districts.
“We would therefore pay the recommended subsidy per 50kg after sales upon presentation and reconciliation of the relevant waybills presented by the companies after its authentication by regional or district directors of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture,” he said.
He noted that government’s fertilizer subsidy programme for the 2010 farming season was 100,000 metric tonnes at the cost of GH¢32 million.
GH¢ 6.5 is paid for clearing, GH¢ 5.00 for transport and GH¢.5 for incidentals totaling GH¢ 17.00 for NPK.
This means that government is paying GH¢ 17.00 out of the approved price of GH¢27.00 for 50kg bag of NPK fertilizer.
For Urea, government pays GH¢ 6.5 for clearing, GH¢5.0 for transport and loading while GH¢ 3.5 goes for the incidentals adding up to GH¢15.00, which is the subsidized amount out of the approved selling price of GH¢25.00.
With regard to Sulphate of Amonia, GH¢6.5 is paid as clearing charges, GH¢5.0 for transport and loading and GH¢4.5 for incidentals totaling GH¢16 out of the approved selling price of GH¢18.00 irrespective of which part of the country they find themselves.
In countries like Latin America 99kg is applied per a hectare, 109kg/ha in South Asia and 149kg/ha in East and South East Asia.